Browsing by Author "Montenegro, Maximiliano"
Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ItemA Characterization of Astronomy Teacher Professional Development Programs in Chile(2024) Rodrigues De Andrade, Lara; Pompea, Stephen M.; Meneses Arévalo, Alejandra Cecilia; Montenegro, MaximilianoChile is home to most of the world's largest telescopes, and astronomy research is robust in the country. However, astronomy education in Chile is much less mature. As an effort to increase its quality and coverage, more astronomy K-12 teacher professional development (PD) has been offered in Chile in the last decade, but the results of these programs have not been characterized in detail. In this context, this article presents the results of an exploratory survey of 16 current astronomy PD programs delivered to primary and secondary education Chilean teachers before 2021. The data was collected through an online questionnaire sent to PD programs leaders and then analyzed in terms of widely accepted effectiveness criteria from the literature. Our results show that most programs met some basic criteria for research-based effective PD practices: most aligned with the Chilean national curriculum topics and offered some hands-on activities. However, few programs had well-developed plans to evaluate their effectiveness or had followed up with the participant teachers to understand how their participation affected their subsequent professional practice. Based on our results, relevant improvements in astronomy teacher PD programs in Chile can be made, setting a model for other countries as well.
- ItemCentralized student performance prediction in large courses based on low-cost variables in an institutional context(2018) Sandoval, Augusto; Gonzalez, Carlos; Alarcon, Rosa; Pichara Baksai, Karim Elías; Montenegro, Maximiliano
- ItemCross-disciplinary language changes in 4th graders as a predictor of the quality of written scientific explanation(2023) Hugo Rojas, Evelyn Susana; Meneses, Alejandra; Montenegro, Maximiliano; Acevedo, Daniela; Figueroa, JavieraUpper elementary students face conceptual and linguistic challenges when writing in science. One way to scaffold science writing is the explicit teaching of cross-disciplinary language. Limited research has explored the dynamics of these language changes in instructional contexts. This study examines the micro-developmental changes in cross-disciplinary language skills and their contributions to the quality of 191 science explanations written by 65 fourth graders that participated in language and literacy-based instruction. The instruction’s pedagogical design was focused on writing-to-learn and learning-to-write the scientific explanation genre. Each student wrote an initial, a scaffolded draft, and a final explanation that was scored for scientific quality and productive cross-disciplinary language skills. Students’ prior and final scientific knowledge was also measured. The results showed large instruction size effects on the scientific quality (0.71), productive cross-disciplinary language skills (0.46), and explanation length (0.64). Stepwise regression analysis showed that prior and final science knowledge and productive cross-disciplinary language skills significantly predict the quality of the final explanation (R2 = .704, F(11,38) = 9.03, p < .000). This research offers evidence of the dynamic relationships between language, literacy, and science in contexts of explicit cross-disciplinary language instruction for disciplinary literacy and learning.
- ItemDirect and Indirect Opportunities to Learn Astronomy Within the Chilean Science Curriculum(2024) Andrade, Lara Rodrigues de; Meneses Arevalo, Alejandra Cecilia; Montenegro, Maximiliano; Cortés, Cristián
- ItemLow-energy fine-structure resonances in photoionization of O II(AMER PHYSICAL SOC, 2010) Nahar, Sultana N.; Montenegro, Maximiliano; Eissner, Werner; Pradhan, Anil K.Resonant features in low-energy photoionization cross sections are reported in coupled-channel calculations for O II including relativistic fine structure. The calculations reveal extensive near-threshold resonant structures in the small energy region between the fine structure levels of the ground state 2p(2)(P-3(0,1,2)) of the residual ion O III. Although the resonances have not yet been observed, they are similar to other experimentally observed features. They are expected to significantly enhance the very-low-temperature dielectronic recombination rates, potentially leading to the resolution of an outstanding nebular abundances anomaly. Higher energy partial and total photoionization cross sections of the ground configuration levels 2p(3)(S-4(3/2)degrees, D-2(3/2,5/2)degrees, P-2(1/2,3/2)degrees) are found to be in agreement with experimental measurements on synchrotron-based photon sources [1-3], thereby identifying the excited O III levels present in the ion beams. These are also the first results from a recently developed version of Breit-Pauli R-matrix (BPRM) codes, with inclusion of two-body magnetic interaction terms. The improved relativistic treatment could be important for other astrophysical applications and for more precise benchmarking of experimental measurements.
- ItemMapping the astronomy content knowledge of Chilean in-service teachers(Routledge, 2023) Rodrigues, Lara; Meneses, Alejandra; Montenegro, Maximiliano© 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.This paper reports a mapping of the astronomy content knowledge held by a sample of 171 Chilean in-service teachers, both from primary and secondary education, using a multiple-choice test. The responses were analysed by total achievement, and the proportion of alternative conceptions for each item was identified. Moreover, the test items were divided by Big Ideas in Astronomy and curricular topics to analyse teachers’ performance by subject, and the effect of some demographic factors was calculated. The results show a relatively low level of astronomy content knowledge and a considerable presence of alternative conceptions amongst Chilean in-service teachers, especially in day-to-day topics like diurnal motion, seasons, and Moon phases. Furthermore, we detected a significant effect on secondary teachers’ performance depending on their teaching degree and on primary teachers’ performance concerning their gender and previous participation in astronomy professional development programmes. Our outcomes offer evidence to improve astronomy teacher training, especially in the Chilean context, and contribute to the still scarce astronomy education research from the country.
- ItemReflexión metalingüística y su relación con la calidad de explicaciones científicas(2024) Hugo Rojas, Evelyn Susana; Meneses Arévalo, Alejandra Cecilia; Montenegro, MaximilianoLa reflexión metalingüística (RM), entendida como la capacidad de atender conscientemente a la lengua, puede ayudar al escritor en la textualización. En géneros disciplinares, cuya producción es demandante, contar con evidencias de factores para andamiar su construcción es un aspecto clave. Sin embargo, más estudios son necesarios para comprender las características de la RM y la relación con los textos escritos por los estudiantes en géneros disciplinares. Este estudio analiza la relación entre RM y la calidad de explicaciones científicas escritas por 359 estudiantes de 4° grado de primaria en dos unidades didácticas. Caracterizamos los desempeños en RM en cinco dimensiones (discursiva, textual, gramatical, léxico-semántica, conceptual). Los modelos de regresión mostraron que el desempeño en RM predice la calidad de las explicaciones, con una contribución diferente por dimensión y unidad didáctica. Además, el desempeño en la dimensión conceptual para la unidad 1 predijo significativamente la calidad de las explicaciones de la unidad 2. Nuestro estudio muestra que la RM es una variable asociada a la construcción textual que recomendamos potenciar en futuras propuestas instruccionales.
- ItemThe moderating effect of metalinguistic reflection on the linguistic resources used in written scientific explanations(2024) Hugo Rojas, Evelyn Susana; Meneses Arévalo, Alejandra Cecilia; Montenegro, MaximilianoThe objective of this study was to analyse the moderating effect of metalinguistic reflection (MR) on linguistic resources to predict the quality of the scientific explanations produced by 359 fourth-grade students who participated in an instructional proposal on scientific explanations of two different scientific processes. The students’ MR level on the changes in their written explanations was assessed at the beginning and end of each unit according to three dimensions: conceptual, discursive and textual. The results show that in the first unit, the effect of metadiscursive resources on quality was diminished by the moderating effect of MR. In the second unit, the moderating effect of MR increased the effects of nominalization on the quality of the texts. The results show that the relationships between MR, linguistic resources and writing explanations are complex and dynamic. More studies are needed to grasp their development and their effects on disciplinary learning and writing.